Epstein reside updates: Several hundred thousand information to be launched as we speak, Trump admin publicizes

Epstein met Trump in the 1980s, around the time the president bought his Mar-a-Lago estate in 1985, when Epstein was also living in Palm Beach. Over at least two decades, a period that White House chief of staff Susie Wiles recently described as the men living as “young, single playboys,” the pair bonded over their sexual exploits and spoke several times a week throughout the 1990s before an apparent falling out in the 2000s.

In 2002, several years before Epstein was under investigation in Florida, Trump told New York magazine that he had known Epstein for 15 years, calling him a “terrific guy.”

But by the time Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell were indicted in separate federal sex trafficking cases, Trump had long distanced himself from his one-time friend.

“Well, I knew him like everybody in Palm Beach knew him,” Trump said on July 9, 2019, one day after Epstein’s arrest. “I mean, people in Palm Beach knew him. He was a fixture in Palm Beach. I had a falling out with him a long time ago. I don’t think I’ve spoken to him for 15 years. I wasn’t a fan.”

Trump has maintained he cut his friendship with Epstein in the early 2000s after he discovered the financier “stole” staff from Mar-a-Lago. The president has said he knew nothing of Epstein’s crimes and has denounced Epstein’s criminal activities.

Blanche indicated that not all materials in the Epstein files will be produced Friday and more documents will become publicly available in the coming weeks.

“I expect we’re going to release more documents over the next couple of weeks,” Blanche told Fox News Friday morning.

“So today, several hundred thousand, over the next couple of weeks, I expect several hundred thousand more.”

Blanche did not clarify whether the materials released Friday would be new. Earlier this year, the Justice Department released “Phase 1” of the Epstein files, which turned out to be mostly known information.

Blanche said more materials will come later because the Justice Department must take the time to redact information related to survivors.

The guests to Epstein’s islands came from across the world and from the highest ranks of society: celebrities and scientists and members of royal families, touching down in a private jet and then boarding a helicopter to the island.

Its owner liked to call it “Little St Jeff”. The locals called it “Pedophile Island.”

But what is the truth about Little St James, the 75-acre private paradise in the U.S. Virgin Islands that billionaire sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein once called home?

Read more here:

The Justice Department could release the Epstein files around 3 p.m. ET this afternoon, a person familiar with the situation told News Nation.

No department official has confirmed the timeline publicly.

Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general in the Justice Department, confirmed Friday morning the department would release “several hundred thousand” documents related to the investigations into Epstein – meeting the Congressionally-imposed deadline.

Several survivors of Jeffrey Epstein have privately expressed concern to Democratic lawmakers about their intermittent release of photos and documents from Epstein’s estate, saying it was distressing to see the selective publication of the material, sources told CNN.

In a video call to the Democratic Women’s Caucus, the survivors expressed their concerns about the cherry-picked photos.

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have periodically released photos from Epstein’s estate that show Epstein with young women – though their faces are redacted.

Rep. Melanie Stansbury, who serves on the House Oversight Committee, told the survivors she would relay their concerns to the top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Robert Garcia. Stansbury reportedly said she also was not pleased with how Garcia was handling the release of the photos.

That is the pessimistic view of Eric O’Neill, a national security lawyer and former FBI counterintelligence operative, who told USA Today: “There is zero chance we will get 100 percent of the documents.

“The most interesting information is going to be not in what we see but in what we don’t see – and reading between the lines to try to understand why certain information was redacted.”

This was Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche on Fox and Friends this morning speaking to Lawrence Jones.

He appeared to be warning the network’s viewers that the files are likely to be heavily redacted.

A new Quinnipiac University survey published this week found, among many other things, that a big proportion of the public is unhappy with the president’s handling of the files this year, with just 26 percent expressing satisfaction with his performance on the issue.

Here’s much more on that poll, which also found that a majority believed Trump had exceeded the powers of his office.